This Tuesday marks the debut of the NEW ENGLAND PHONOGRAPHERS UNION, a loose confederation of sound artists and field recordists who work with untreated and unprocessed recordings of the rich and varied sounds around them. The hum of an electrical appliance, the whip and whistle of wind, chattering voices, the clang of machinery, and a host of ostensibly non-musical noises are all grist for the phonographers’ mill.

The project is modeled after the Seattle Phonographers Union, which was founded in 2002 and has spawned like-minded groups in New York, Chicago, London, and Montreal. Local Union organizer Ernst Karel says the first half of this first concert by the New England chapter will have various Union members performing short sets, with each piece flowing uninterrupted into the next. (He likens this to “a sequence of phonographic solos.”) In the second half, the phonographers will undertake a collaborative improvisation, selecting, cross-referencing, and mixing sounds from their individual collections.

Whereas their instruments are for the most part traditional, the BSC make music that is by no means run-of-the-mill. The line-up includes some of Boston’s most innovative electro-acoustic improvisers: BHOB RAINEY (soprano sax), GREG KELLEY (trumpet), JAMES COLEMAN (theremin), CHRIS COOPER (prepared guitar), HOWARD STELZER (tapes), VIC RAWLINGS (cello, electronics), MIKE BULLOCK (contrabass), and LIZ TONNE (voice). Large improvisatory ensembles are often ungainly creatures, but the BSC play with uncommon subtlety and cohesiveness. And though the music can be breathtakingly quiet, that doesn’t mean it isn’t intense. For their concert this Tuesday at the Piano Craft Guild, the group, lacking Bullock and Tonne, will be a lean, mean, streamlined sextet.

Artists get the shaft On a tour of the studios at 337 Summer Street, Jen Mecca, a textile artist, points out some of the spaces recently vacated by artists and craftsmen, including a pair of furniture makers who left for Somerville.

School politics Public education in Boston will be a hot-button issue in this year's municipal election in ways that have not been seen for at least 10 years.

Political sucker punches David S. Bernstein’s story about Governor Deval Patrick is an example of going for the easy political jab rather than providing thoughtful analysis.

Course correction So it unfolded on Facebook, the story of this down-on-his-luck recent graduate in possession of a bachelor’s degree in the liberal arts from a respected area school.

Ex-USM staffers claim age discrimination In complaints filed with the University of Southern Maine's Office of Campus Diversity and Equity, a state legislator and five former colleagues allege they were discriminated against in a recent department restructuring because of their ages. The complainants' ages range between 56 and 63.

Activist Tales Cleve Jones told a fascinating tale about how the assassination of Harvey Milk led him to become a prominent bridge-builder between the LGBT community and the labor movement.

Herald or harbinger? Those of us fascinated by the rapidly deflating balloon that is the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram have had a lot to chew over from a lot of sources lately.

Pilgrims’ progress India, 1838. The opium business is booming, and drug money fills the British Empire’s coffers, offsetting a trade imbalance created by imports of Chinese tea and silk. But now the emperor wants the drug trade stopped.

ASSAULT AND BATTERIES | February 20, 2009 After a brief stint in Pittsburgh, guitarist and electronic musician GEOFF MULLEN is back in his native Rhode Island, and the New England music scene is so much the better for it.

SO MUCH IN STORE | February 10, 2009 Australia's the NECKS are the sort of band who thwart classification.

A COMPROVISATIONAL WHAT? | February 02, 2009 Local saxophonist and electronic-musician JORRIT DIJKSTRA combines a variety of styles ranging from jazz to electro-acoustic improv and noise to create his own emotive and often idiosyncratic music.

WINTRY MIX | January 26, 2009 There are so many interesting and unusual musical happenings this week, it's almost more than this little column can bear.